I popped up to Lincolnshire last week for the big switch on of our first Sun Park.

It’s a 1MW installation next door to our existing 16MW Wind Park – making it not just the first proper Sun Park in the UK but the first Hybrid Energy Park.

That’s something we’re pretty keen on, the combination of two intermittent, but complementary, forms of Renewable Energy – we think the likely outcome will be a smoothing effect. The sun and the wind tend to come at different times. Now that it’s up and running we get to test the theory and we’ll keep you posted.

We had big hopes, not just for big solar projects, but also for Hybrid schemes like this. And within the boundaries of each Sun Park we planned to create a nature reserve, a habitat for insects, birds and bees.

So last week, with its perfect weather for the opening of a Hybrid energy park (lots of sun and wind), was a bit of a bitter sweet event – great to see this first Sun Park up and ‘running’ (they don’t actually move, which though obvious, once you’ve been staring at them for an hour or two, does kind of impact) – and great to see the evidence already of nature taking back this small piece of farmland (five acres). But of course this will be our last Sun Park due to the governments crazy emergency U-turn on feed in tariffs the other week.

I just wanted to flag up here the extent to which killing off Big Solar really is a false economy, and not just something at odds with a serious green agenda – a point we’ve tried making to the government.

The government’s big issue with Big Solar appears to be its apparent success, the sheer amount of it that might get built – and the cost.

They’ve capped the amount that can be spent, under Feed in Tariffs, at £360M per year (come 2014), making this the only FIT scheme in the world with a cap in the process.

And it’s this cap that then caused their big problem (they say) – the possibility that Big Solar could be successful at the expense of other technologies, funding wise – because funding is suddenly limited. OK that’s the background.

The £360M a year equates to roughly £5 per household per year – not a fortune – roughly 1% of a typical electricity bill.

In contrast – Each time the cost of oil doubles, as it has in the last few years and will do again (and again), electricity bills rise by something like 30% – or £150 a year. Money that goes to energy market traders and speculators.

Far better we think to spend those kinds of sums on indigenous energy sources. We told the government so in our response to the FiT U-turn.

And then, just last week, we had a graphic demonstration.

British Gas announced a price rise of 16% for electricity and 18% for gas – adding £192 a year to a typical dual fuel energy bill with BG – and causing considerable consternation to the government, bless them.

Chris Huhne, the minister who’s department has just felled Big Solar because £5 a year is quite enough to spend on renewables thank you very much – had this to say:

“This announcement will be tough for consumers who are already struggling to meet their bills. The uncomfortable truth is Britain’s consumers are being buffeted by the violent and unpredictable winds of global fossil fuel prices.

“I refuse to stand by and watch this happen.

“I’m pushing the big six suppliers to help their customers overhaul their draughty homes and understand the best tariffs on offer, and I’m backing new entrants to bring more competition to the market.

“But there’s a way out of this. Look at how the French benefit from only relying on fossil fuels for a fraction of their power – bills there are only expected to rise by 3% this year.

“The UK electricity market has to change, so that we escape the cycle of fossil fuel addiction. Alternatives like renewables and nuclear power must be allowed to become the dominant component of our energy mix.

“Only radical reform now will give us the best chance in the long run of keeping the lights on at a price that doesn’t wreck our economy over and over again.”

These are fine words. But they don’t seem to match the deeds. Lots of rhetoric about radical reform of the energy market, when we can’t even have a proper Feed in Tariff. It’s a proper Renewable Energy program we need. Not righteous indignation when the inevitable happens. And keeps happening.

And this is not an isolated price rise – The Guardian reports that British Gas customers have seen their fuel bills rise twice in the last few months – by a total of £258 a year – an almost 25% increase….!

By the time we get to 2014 and the Feed in tariff costs this horrific £5 per household – fossil fuel energy bills could well have risen by £1,000 a year (at this rate), or at least if you’re with British Gas…. 🙂

That’s £1,000 every year, not just a one off.

It kind of takes our point and makes it rather emphatically.

And it’s not just British Gas, Scottish power energy bills went up 21% (or £239) just last month.

Scrimping on the cost of renewables now, killing big solar because a fiver per house is already too much to bear – is a false economy – one that we will pay for many times over in years to come. We’ll spend far larger sums simply keeping pace with energy market speculators and traders – and that money is wasted, truly, compared to using it to build energy sources of our own.

That’s it, all I wanted to say….. 🙂

Cheers.

P.S. The panels for this project are Sharp NU range – made in Wrexham, UK.

12 responses to “False Economies”

Dean

July 11, 2011 at 11:01 pm

If these large scale solar projects are now not viable for Ecotricty, is there any chance that you could help householders with the cost of installation if they agreed to sign a contract to sell the energy back to Ecotricity?

I would love to have a solar panel on our roof, but I cannot afford the inital costs which I have been told is around £10,000.

Neil O'Connor

July 12, 2011 at 6:59 pm

There are a number of options with solar, and a whole raft of different manufacturers and installation companies.
Your price would depend on how many panels you wanted, and which make of panel was used. They all offer no obligation quotes, I was quoted as low as 7,100.00 GBP for a 2kw system fully installed.

The problem Dean is the same faced by Ecotricity. The Feed in Tariff issue also affects the individual not just companies like Eoctricity. I was looking into it over the weekend.

The scheme in it’s present form for households whereby a company installs and pays for the photovoltaic system and you get 25 years of free electricity, comes to an end in 2012.

“If you decided to buy a solar photovoltaic system you would easily earn back your initial investment through the generous feed-in tariffs which is the government’s solar cashback scheme. This is where your energy supplier pays you for every kilowatt of electricity that your panels produce. This payment is guaranteed for 25 years and is indexed linked to the retail price index. This means that the amount that you get paid every year goes up.”

Yes what about giving people money towards installing solar panels in return for selling the power to Ecotricity.
Just look a the supermarkets 10p of a litre when you spend £40 shopping. Is there not a similar grant system that could work.

I agree with every word written.
We have unbeleivable opportunities in this country to lead the world in Alternative Energy Technologies.
Cammeron bleats on about backing Entrepenuers, Green Thinkers and New Ideas then effectively pulls the rug from under their feet.
What happened to British Ingenuity. It hit the brick wall of British Government.
The idiots (Neophites) in governments seem never to have lived on the same planet as people like me.
Dale Vince is without doubt the most knowledgable man in regard to his sphere of operations in the UK. Why is his expertise and knwledge not being utilised by our So Called leaders to put the UK in a position of exporting our ideas and technology.
We used to have a Motor Industry, Steel Industry, Ship Building Industry and many more that were the envy of the planet at this rate we will not even get on the New Energy Train .
Dale must be pulling his hair out at these circumstances and I know the feeling.
I have run a Recycling system for 35 years and know that for very little investment the system could drastically Reduce CO2, UK Motoring Costs, UK Import requirements, Vehicle Theft, Hazardous Substance leakage into the UK’s soild and water tables and many more benefits.
When I say little investment its minor in comparison to the Millions our government wastes. £75,000 per year for 4 years.
Stand for Parliament Dale.
You will get my vote.

Paul Verbinnen

July 16, 2011 at 12:32 am

Hi Terry,

Unfortunately this country has already missed the boat to be a world leader, as reported in the news this week. Even countries in Africa are leaving this place far behind.
There’s something fundamentally wrong with a British government that is so complacent about the looming climatic catastrophe.
Content to protect their fossil fuel buddies (& their own shareholding) at the expense of the population and the planet.
Regards,
Paul

Martin

July 12, 2011 at 8:52 pm

How is a ‘project’ defined?

The current feed-in tariff is still the same for <50kw projects. So could you not have ten different 50Kw 'projects' all in the same field, that all got commisoned one week after each other with seperate invertors? – making a 500KWs in total?

OFGEM have various means of defining ‘site’ to which the maximum generation value is applied – which then controls what rate of FiT is payable.

This includes the expected, such as OS map ref, postcode, MPAN meter ref, but also a ‘catch-all’ clause that allows them to decide exactly what is or isn’t allowed on whatever basis they feel like dreaming up.

Watching the video clip of the BBC news, I noted that Greg Barker also said:

“…and will also further encourage the uptake of green electricity from anaerobic digestion”

The FIT changes are a bit of a setback for PV solar power, but not so for Ecotricity’s “green gas” plans, no?

cheers,

Nick

Blogspot “Sustainability and stuff according to Nick Palmer”

David Hicks

August 2, 2011 at 8:47 pm

Ecotricity has done such great work I wonder if there is a risk now from these companies that fit free Solar Panels to your house.
There profit comes from the Government.
And the feed in Tariff.
It seems like an amazing deal. Nothing to pay but it will Knock up to 1/3 off your Bill.
I am certainly considering it but I am not sure that I can stay with Ecotricity and still get the Free Solar Panels.

Does Ecoticity have any plans to get into this kind of Power Generation Where you fit free Solar Panels to peoples House?

Zero Carbonista

This blog is about answers to the big questions - how will we keep the lights on, what kind of cars will we drive (will we drive?) and how will we feed ourselves - in a post oil world, and a world where we can't afford to keep burning things and throwing things away. Energy, Transport and Food are the three big issues.